The Pack

Its not the easiest life to be a dog in Bali. You start out as a cute little puppy. After a few weeks the cuteness wears off as the skin diseases cause you hair to fall out and your owners reject you. Eventually you find yourself homeless, starving, and pathetically trying to shelter under a shrub during the rainy season. And so it was for 3 little puppies that my gardener happened to notice on his way home the other day. These guys were terrified of people but too weak to run away. Being a kind sort Nengah(my gardener) brought them into our neighborhood and they have since taken up semi-permanent accomodation in my carport. The pups have been accepted by Mallie, the alpha male in the neighborhood as well as Badi, the other dog that hangs out next door.

So for the last week or two I've been learning about kampung dogs. These pups are doing much better after getting stuffed with food from all the generous folks nearby. These guys can eat. I've never seen a dog until now that's able to eat rice until he can't physically get any more down his throat. They are reasonably clever too. It didn't take long to teach them how to take food sitting down and not to try and snap it from my fingers. They are still very traumatized by whatever experience they had earlier and don't really like to be handled, at least not at first. Progress in socializing these guys has been slow. Unfortunately I don't see much future for them if they can't get used to being around people.

Hopefully someone will come around to take 1 or 2 of these little guys in. It would seem a shame to rescue these dogs only to put them down later for lack of an owner.

Addendum: How not to solve your dog problem